Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Original article
Management of patients with HIV-1 infection by pharmacist prescribers: an evaluation of practice
  1. Jane S Nicholls1,
  2. Mandeep Butt1,
  3. David Ogden2,
  4. Mel Snelling3,
  5. Rosy Weston4
  1. 1Medicines Safety Division, East and South East England Specialist Pharmacy Service, UK
  2. 2Pharmacy Department, St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK
  3. 3Pharmacy Department, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, Oxford, UK
  4. 4Pharmacy Department, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Jane S Nicholls, Pharmacy Department, East and South East England Specialist Pharmacy Services, Northwick Park Hospital, Watford Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 3UJ, UK; Jane.nicholls{at}nhs.net

Abstract

Objectives This paper describes the self-evaluation and peer review of the practice of a group of self-selected pharmacist prescribers managing patients with HIV-1 infection in secondary care settings in the UK.

Methods Pharmacist prescribers who were responsible for managing an episode of care for adult HIV patients within defined clinical settings were invited to participate. The project lead worked with the volunteers to define, pilot and use a data collection tool for prospective data collection.

Results Four pharmacist prescribers agreed to participate and a tool was developed and used for prospective data collection over 6 months for a total of 95 patient consultations. The pharmacists were providing a number of different models of service delivery as either scheduled or unscheduled appointments, face-to-face or on the telephone. The primary purpose of the consultations ranged from initiation and optimisation of therapy to maintenance of supply of medicines and adherence advice. An attempt was made to look at patient outcomes in terms of viral load, and prescribing error rate was 1.2% of prescribed items.

Conclusions This evaluation suggests that pharmacist prescribers are able to safely and effectively manage episodes of care for patients with HIV-1 infection. Use of the data collection tool was found to be relatively simple and could be used for routine self-assessment or further study. Limitations include the small size and the self-assessment by practitioners. Further work should focus on an evaluation of the service against the BHIVA Standards 2013 and the patient experience.

  • patient outcomes
  • adherence
  • prescribing
  • non-medical prescribing

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.